Yes 47 martians could do it. Some of the ones that arrive are pregnant. So their numbers will grow. Who knows how quickly. With their flying machines they could drop black smoke onto all the cities. And use the rural folk as food. They could burn all our farm lands. Melt the Ice Caps. Pollute our water. They could do it. Any followers would just be settlers. The first force is to render us useless. desimate our numbers. break our political and social structures. Just as the Artillary Man predicts.

Some of the ones that arrive are pregnant. So their numbers will grow. Who knows how quickly.

As you say, we know nothing about the Martian birth rate. How long does a bud grow on the parent? How long does an infant Martian take to mature? To educate? How much time does an adult Martian spend between buds? Even then, to grow from just 47 to the numbers needed to occupy an entire planet would take decades.

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With their flying machines they could drop black smoke onto all the cities. And use the rural folk as food. They could burn all our farm lands. Melt the Ice Caps. Pollute our water. They could do it.

But do they have enough smoke to bomb every last acre of land? Can they ever be sure that they've killed every soilder? Destroyed every weapon? What if those rural folk are armed? Suppose these peolpe are able to plan for the Martian arrival, give themselves up to be eaten only to set off hidden explosives? Or poison their own bodies thus killing anyone who drinks of their blood? After the first few deaths by insurgent, the Martians won't be able to trust any of their prey again. Any human they find could be a trap, a weapon waiting to clam them. In every nook and cave and hole there could be cells of dozens of human rebels ready to take the fight to the Martians. They'd never be able to find every last hiding place, there would always be something else they could have missed. And demoralizing? When it comes to rebels and fanatics, pain only drives them farther. Every atrocity and execution only adds fuel to their rage. Occupations are far from easy to accomplish.

They'll try to tear down our social structure, but how many nations could they roll over? With every conquest what little news leaks out could be used to set out new plans of defense and counter-attack. Even with the mobility grnated by the flying machines, how many do they have? How fast are they? What fuels them? How much of a payload can they carry? A force of at most 47 aircraft would be greatly limited in its destructive power.

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Any followers would just be settlers. The first force is to render us useless. desimate our numbers. break our political and social structures. Just as the Artillary Man predicts.

But would the Martians send their settlers unguarded? If they are so intelligent in their planning would they not be prepared for the posibility that the invasion could have been slowed or delayed? And again, this invasion is hapening over 15 years later. (Arround WWI) The Martians know that the first attack was unsucessfull and as they did before have learned from their mistakes. Being scientific minds, they had a theory of how to destroy us and had it tested. Now, knowing the results, they've been able to modify that theory and are ready to give it annother go.

Okay its a good argument. But I suggest that in the book Wells intended those Martians to be the first and final wave. That they are so advanced that they alone are set to conquer Earth. I think he believed that humanity would fall apart. That we would become uncivilized very quickly and no longer operate as an effective team. He might not be right. But in his book, he's right, and that was one of the big themes of the book. That we fall to peices very quckly, that the worst comes out of us in such a terrible, catastrophic event.
They are building a camp at Primrose Hill. There are strange structures. From here they can mass produce devices to tame us. Wells doesn't write of it, but if they are more advanced than we are even today, then they could build robots, flying machines with AI guiding them. They could clone themselves. Speed up their growth, implant knowledge. They could experiment on us. Find ways of controling us with chemicals, as a Queen Ant controles her workers.
They didn't even get started, alls they really did was secure an area to build a base, from that base they would mass produce our demise.
The points you make about us being dangerous food is a really good point. Wells Said that they prefered us, which means they did feed on other animals. So if we proved to be dangerous cattle that couldn't be tamed. and I think we could, then they could just iliminate us and feed off other members of the animal kingdom. Chimpanzees for instance. Small in numbers at the time but they could breed them.

From here they can mass produce devices to tame us. Wells doesn't write of it, but if they are more advanced than we are even today, then they could build robots, flying machines with AI guiding them. They could clone themselves. Speed up their growth, implant knowledge. They could experiment on us. Find ways of controling us with chemicals, as a Queen Ant controles her workers.

Bad move.

You're taking this and treating it like Modern Sci-Fi. When dealing with a classic, you need to look back before you look foreward. This was written in a time before people even dreamed of things like cloning, computers or robots. Take the Victorian Point-of-view as to what this highly advanced alien species should or shouldn't have. Look back... way back to 1897, (or 1914 for the case of this proposed Fanfic) look at what they had, and what they though might happen in the future.

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They didn't even get started, alls they really did was secure an area to build a base, from that base they would mass produce our demise.

But that would take time, lots of time, and could be spead up by additional workers. Keep in mind, Mars is getting old and they want a new home... now.

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The points you make about us being dangerous food is a really good point. Wells Said that they prefered us, which means they did feed on other animals. So if we proved to be dangerous cattle that couldn't be tamed. and I think we could, then they could just iliminate us and feed off other members of the animal kingdom. Chimpanzees for instance. Small in numbers at the time but they could breed them.

I suppose, but we could still do some rather nasty things to the rest of the environment. People still find minefields ages after the war has come and gone...

But I suggest that in the book Wells intended those Martians to be the first and final wave. That they are so advanced that they alone are set to conquer Earth.

You have read this book haven't you 'Loz'? a little reminder just i case you've forgotten

CHAPTER TENThe Epilogue

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A question of graver and universal interest is the possibility of another attack from the Martians. I do not think that nearly enough attention is being given to this aspect of the matter. At present the planet Mars is in conjunction, but with every return to opposition I, for one, anticipate a renewal of their adventure. In any case, we should be prepared. It seems to me that it should be possible to define the position of the gun from which the shots are discharged, to keep a sustained watch upon this part of the planet, and to anticipate the arrival of the next attack.

From here they can mass produce devices to tame us. Wells doesn't write of it, but if they are more advanced than we are even today, then they could build robots, flying machines with AI guiding them. They could clone themselves. Speed up their growth, implant knowledge. They could experiment on us. Find ways of controling us with chemicals, as a Queen Ant controles her workers.

Bad move.

You're taking this and treating it like Modern Sci-Fi. When dealing with a classic, you need to look back before you look foreward. This was written in a time before people even dreamed of things like cloning, computers or robots. Take the Victorian Point-of-view as to what this highly advanced alien species should or shouldn't have. Look back... way back to 1897, (or 1914 for the case of this proposed Fanfic) look at what they had, and what they though might happen in the future....

Actually, on the whole I think Loz is treating it from Wells' 1897 perspective, with the obvious exception of using modern terminology such as 'cloning' and 'AI' which, of course, Wells wouldn't have used, but which Loz uses as shorthand.

Nevertheless, Wells could clearly imagine science having enormous power over moulding living creatures, however it was done (selective breeding, surgery etc.) - look at Moreau, and the Selenite society in 'The First Men in the Moon'. In other of his writings, Wells speculated on man being able to rebuild himself, whether by expanding his braincase to enhance intelligence, or mucking about with the digestive tract, a la Metchnikoff, to curtail our reliance on primitive foodstuffs.

As for AI and robots, arguably Wells tipped a nod in their direction with the Digging Mechanism seen in the pit from the ruined house:

'...down on the left a busy little digging mechanism had come into view, emitting jets of green vapour and working its way round the pit, excavating and embanking in a methodical and discriminating manner. This it was which had caused the regular beating noise, and the rhythmic shocks that had kept our ruinous refuge quivering. It piped and whistled as it worked. So far as I could see, the thing was without a directing Martian at all.'

Of course, the Narrator could be wrong, and the Martians control it by other means, but the fact is that Wells demonstrates that he can imagine a mechanism that controls itself. And in any case, many other (mainly hack) writers of 'scientific romances' before Wells had imagined 'artificial men', mechanical men, or robots, they simply didn't refer to them as robots as that had to wait for Capek's 'R.U.R'. So to imagine that the Victorians couldn't imagine AI (and Charles Babbage clearly did) is wrong, they just didn't call it that.

And the Martians clearly experimented on us, as seen in an excised sentence from the novel, but which appeared in the Pearson's serialisation, referring to 'an eminent surgeon' found alive in the pit at Wimbledon, fixed to a table and horribly mutilated as the Martians had vivisected him.

Nevertheless, Wells could clearly imagine science having enormous power over moulding living creatures, however it was done (selective breeding, surgery etc.) - look at Moreau, and the Selenite society in 'The First Men in the Moon'. In other of his writings, Wells speculated on man being able to rebuild himself, whether by expanding his braincase to enhance intelligence, or mucking about with the digestive tract, a la Metchnikoff, to curtail our reliance on primitive foodstuffs.

Of course physical augmentation wasn't beyond the immaginatiosn of the day. (That's part of my argument for the Martians developing a means to counter Earth's biological defences) Adding new organs or body parts wouldn't be too outlandish for this setting, and they could find means of speeding their reproduction, but I doubt that anyone would have considdered in the last Years of the 19th century the Idea of perfectly copied organisms being grown en masse in some sort of vat, as we see with the modern Sci-Fi context of 'cloning'.

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As for AI and robots, arguably Wells tipped a nod in their direction with the Digging Mechanism seen in the pit from the ruined house:

'...down on the left a busy little digging mechanism had come into view, emitting jets of green vapour and working its way round the pit, excavating and embanking in a methodical and discriminating manner. This it was which had caused the regular beating noise, and the rhythmic shocks that had kept our ruinous refuge quivering. It piped and whistled as it worked. So far as I could see, the thing was without a directing Martian at all.'

Of course, the Narrator could be wrong, and the Martians control it by other means, but the fact is that Wells demonstrates that he can imagine a mechanism that controls itself. And in any case, many other (mainly hack) writers of 'scientific romances' before Wells had imagined 'artificial men', mechanical men, or robots, they simply didn't refer to them as robots as that had to wait for Capek's 'R.U.R'. So to imagine that the Victorians couldn't imagine AI (and Charles Babbage clearly did) is wrong, they just didn't call it that.

The digging machine is a fairly simple device though, that follows a nice ordinary path under clear Martian supervision. Self-Operating machines are one thing, but the kind of computing power required to succesfully fly an Aircraft through variations in tempurature, wind, and air pressure and accurately strike a far-off target is a whole 'nother level of design. If they had computers that sophisticated, then why not just automate the Tripods themselves and stay back in the pits out of harm's way? The fact that we still see Martians operating the more complex weapons of the Martians suggests that they don't have a better way of doing it at the moment.

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And the Martians clearly experimented on us, as seen in an excised sentence from the novel, but which appeared in the Pearson's serialisation, referring to 'an eminent surgeon' found alive in the pit at Wimbledon, fixed to a table and horribly mutilated as the Martians had vivisected him.

I don't realy oppose the concept of experimenting, (Fits in with them overcoming our bacteria in later invasions) it was just the AIs and the Clones that I was arguing.

But I suggest that in the book Wells intended those Martians to be the first and final wave. That they are so advanced that they alone are set to conquer Earth.

You have read this book haven't you 'Loz'? a little reminder just i case you've forgotten

CHAPTER TENThe Epilogue

Quote:

A question of graver and universal interest is the possibility of another attack from the Martians. I do not think that nearly enough attention is being given to this aspect of the matter. At present the planet Mars is in conjunction, but with every return to opposition I, for one, anticipate a renewal of their adventure. In any case, we should be prepared. It seems to me that it should be possible to define the position of the gun from which the shots are discharged, to keep a sustained watch upon this part of the planet, and to anticipate the arrival of the next attack.

Yes I've flicked through it a couple of times.

However what the Narator speculates is not fact. I as a reader am aloud to interprate what happens next. And Its over for them. They do not come back. The planet is poisonous to them and that is that. of course the Narator and the rest of humanity would always fear it, but it wouldn't come.

If they were just going to come back, why would they try Venus? That would be harder surely. Venus too may have bugs, and all the same problems.

However what the Narator speculates is not fact. I as a reader am aloud to interprate what happens next. And Its over for them. They do not come back. The planet is poisonous to them and that is that. of course the Narator and the rest of humanity would always fear it, but it wouldn't come.

If they were just going to come back, why would they try Venus? That would be harder surely. Venus too may have bugs, and all the same problems.

And I, as a reader, am aloud to interprate as well. And it's only the begining. The Martians are very scientific people who want to gather information about alll their viable options before making a descisive move. They can only Learn so much about Earth, or any other planet, via different forms of telescope. In order to be sure, they have to go there and take a took arround. They launch a test invasion of Earth, and a test invasion of Venus. (The two most likley targets for colonization) From the Earth one, they now know that the inhabitants of Earth are no major threat to them, but our environment is hazardous. Future operations on Earth would require the development of proper countermeasures. (Which the dying martians in London may have been working on before the end)

The invasion of Venus would be a similar scouting mission, to determine the viability of using Venus as their new home. If they succeed there, then that's where they'll move and they probably wouldn't give Earth a second thought. If they find some new obstacle on Venus which would take more to overcome than Earth's bacterial defenses, then Earth is once again the target of Choice. This is why they didn't just come right back at the next opposition, they're waiting for all the facts to come in before the next big move.

I like your picture Lonesome Crow and your others. Your a very good painter, but more importantly you are origional.
I saw the one of inside the hood, was that the inside of one of your tripods or jeff wayne's?

I like your picture Lonesome Crow and your others. Your a very good painter, but more importantly you are origional.I saw the one of inside the hood, was that the inside of one of your tripods or jeff wayne's?

Thank you That's the inside of one of Jeff's FMs I painted it back in the late 70s (long before I designed my own), I would do it a little different these days, actualy I would do it a lot different There wouldn't be much to see if I did a picture of the inside of one of my FMs as the Martian just about fills the Hood A bit of a tight squeeze

I like your picture Lonesome Crow and your others. Your a very good painter, but more importantly you are origional.I saw the one of inside the hood, was that the inside of one of your tripods or jeff wayne's?

Thank you That's the inside of one of Jeff's FMs I painted it back in the late 70s (long before I designed my own), I would do it a little different these days, actualy I would do it a lot different There wouldn't be much to see if I did a picture of the inside of one of my FMs as the Martian just about fills the Hood A bit of a tight squeeze

As if you were just getting it fresh from the Dealership, complete with that "New Tripod Smell".

"Now, this one's the new '05 Model. Gets a good fourty clicks to the litre on open land and handles like a dream. Air conditioned, with power steering, and 5.1 surround sound. And if you order today you don't ahve to pay for a full year, and get 0.1% finanacing."

Or, from annother view:

"Come on Down to Crazy Eddy's Tripod clearout sale! All models, new and used, must be sold!"

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